Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 14 · 2026-10-06

IELTS Writing Task 2 question

Nowadays many people choose to be self-employed, rather than to work for a company or organisation.

Why might this be the case?

What could be the disadvantages of being self-employed?

Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.

Student answer (Band 5.5)

People are more inclined to being self-employed than working for others like company or organisation has become a common sight these days. In this essay, I am going to explain some major cases of increasing popularity of self-employed, rather than working as office employee. Additionally, I am going to mention some of the notable disadvantages of being self-employed.

As the global inflation is rising day by day, it has created the major problem for the working individuals as the money paid by the institution is simply not enough for fullfilling the fundamental requirements and other essential needs of the employee. As a result, many people have choosen not to work in official environment, rather, they are developing certain sets of skills for doing freelancing or registering their own company. For instance, in the span of 5 years, there is significant rising in the registraiton of new clothing brand. These numbers were almost triple of the brand registration 10 years before that. We can also take example of freelancers, as there have been substantial increase in the freelancing industry. Specially in the content creation industry were many youngsters take contract form different companies and don't rely too much on single company.

In spite of having various benefits, there are some noticable drawback of being self-employed as it doesn't gurantee the constant flow of the money. Furthermore, to start their own business or company, there is requirement of inital invesment to gather commodities. Not only that, if the business didn't go as expected, it might put in great debt.

To conclude, being self-employed has certain perks, like being boss of oneself and having flexibility but there are some drawbacks which are hard to ignore.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.5

You address both questions: the first body paragraph gives a reason for self-employment, linking inflation and insufficient wages to freelancing or starting a business, while the second identifies uncertain income, start-up costs and debt as disadvantages. However, the explanation of why people choose this path is not fully developed: the examples of clothing-brand registrations and content creators are asserted rather than clearly connected to the financial pressure described. The disadvantages are also listed briefly, with little explanation of their effects. Your conclusion mentions flexibility and being one’s own boss, but these benefits are introduced late rather than developed in the main discussion. Explain each key point with a clear cause-and-effect link and a specific, relevant example.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.0

The response has a recognisable structure, with an introduction, separate paragraphs for the reasons and disadvantages, and a conclusion. This makes the overall direction easy to follow. You also use linking expressions such as “As a result,” “Furthermore,” and “To conclude.” At times, however, the progression within paragraphs is less clear: the move from inflation to clothing-brand registrations is not fully explained, and “Not only that” introduces another disadvantage without developing its relationship to the previous point. The introduction also previews the essay in a formulaic way, and the conclusion adds benefits that were not discussed earlier. Build clearer links between claims and examples, and use referencing and transitions more naturally.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.0

You use some relevant topic vocabulary, including “self-employed,” “freelancing,” “contract,” “constant flow of the money,” and “initial investment.” This gives you enough language to communicate the main ideas, but the range is limited and several noticeable word-choice, collocation and spelling errors reduce precision. For example, “major cases” is not a natural way to describe reasons, “official environment” is unclear, and “registration of new clothing brand” is awkwardly phrased. There are also misspellings such as “fullfilling,” “choosen,” and “noticable.” Aim to learn common collocations for employment and business, check spelling carefully, and choose precise terms rather than relying on broad or unnatural phrases.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

You attempt both simple and complex sentences, including a cause-and-effect structure beginning “As a result” and a conditional sentence about a business not going as expected. However, complex structures are often inaccurate, and errors sometimes make the intended meaning harder to follow. For example, “People are more inclined to being self-employed … has become” has a faulty sentence structure, while “there have been substantial increase” has an agreement error. In “if the business didn’t go as expected, it might put in great debt,” the conditional construction and pronoun reference are not controlled. Review subject–verb agreement, articles, and conditional forms, and divide long or overloaded sentences into clearer units. More accurate sentence patterns would improve readability.

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